


Empathy

by iluvaqt



Series: DC & Marvel: Nightingale [18]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Daredevil (TV), Smallville, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Marvel Netflix - Freeform, Memory Loss, Multiple Crossovers, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-10
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2018-06-07 13:06:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6805885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iluvaqt/pseuds/iluvaqt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tie in with events from Netflix 'Daredevil' Season 1.</p><p>Chapter 1: SullyRogers<br/>Chapter 2: BuckyNat</p><p>Never one to sit on her hands, Chloe's been keeping busy around the city and lands herself in trouble. She hasn't been so much hiding anything from Steve, she just hadn't bothered to tell him. Now that he's seen trouble in New York, his first thought is for her safety but he can't reach her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Why I Need You

The biggest challenge, aside from the technology -- relearning everything that had once been her normal -- were the people. New York City had so many people. So much noise and not just the type that she could hear. No, the emotional noise that she could feel in her mind and her body -- physical pain, loneliness, despair and suffering.

On Vanaheim, everyone was spread out, some living in clustered tent villages, others in small townships, and many little family groups in remote locations, scattered across the rich farming land of the vast fertile planet. People came to her in need, and she helped as best she could before she left their homes and returned to her own. Her abilities had proximity limitations which she had always counted as a blessing, excluding the one time she had wished she had a longer, wider range with greater influence so she might have been able to counteract Lorelei more effectively.

In the overpopulated city there was no escape from the oppressive, thick and suffocating aura she felt, day and night. When they were at the Avengers base in Upstate New York, and later at SHIELD HQ in D.C. it had been somewhat muted, replaced instead with this heightened edge of anxious energy or dare she even consider the thought, boredom. The nature of their work evoked a natural adrenaline high, everyone in a state of readiness for something, fight or flight. And the ones who itched for it, but were relegated to mundane tasks or positions were stuck in feelings of frustration and boredom.

Boredom was the worst feeling. It was like an itch that wouldn’t go away, this energy sapping, flat void that just seemed to buzz on the edge of her consciousness like a leech. But after a week of being stuck in their apartment, waiting for Steve to come home and trying to keep James occupied and unnoticed by their neighbors or by the SHIELD agents (who were trying to be discreet at surveillance but she had spotted the second their moving van had arrived across the street, four doors down), sent to spy/protect them, she almost found it preferable to what she was feeling now.

Every time he woke up from a nightmare, which was almost daily, James would be guilt ridden, withdrawn and irritable. It took her most of the morning to coax him into doing regular things like eat and bathe. Honestly, what was it with men had having to be reminded to shower and change their clothes?

Even Steve seemed to think showering was optional. You'd be justified into thinking he'd been the one to live without running water for two decades. He always smelled appealing to her but even she wasn't okay with him smelling like three-day old gym sweats. More so for anyone else who might share his company and was too polite to say anything about his manly scent. He seemed more than comfortable with using a basin and wash cloth than getting under hot spray, and using shower gel and a loofah.

She understood James couldn’t stomach the thought of letting anyone get close to him with sharp objects and running water still made him edgy but surely a wash basin wasn’t so beyond the realm of possibility.

Steve would probably lose his mind if he knew what she’d taken to doing with James in tow, but she couldn’t just wait around cooped up any longer.

The glasses seemed to work for Steve and Clark, so she bought James a pair of thick rimmed glasses with plain glass lenses, put his hair in little corn rows, pulled a beanie over the top and gave him a pair of leather gloves to don and tugged him out the door.

They frequented welfare shelters, mobile free-meal kitchens, youth community centers, free health clinics and the low income housing areas. Chloe directed James to work with a tool box wherever they went and told him to ask people what they needed fixing, while she helped with food prep in the kitchens, or assisted the pro bono health professionals. At first he was very unsure of himself appearing as an Jamaican-esque Jack-of-all-Trades while he considered his only talent was killing people. But offering to help little old ladies that reminded him of Becca, put tentative smile on his face. And as they rode the bus back together after that first day, the tinge of contentment of a good deed done from a hard days work of manual labor was well worth his grumpy disposition when she’d initially broached her idea.

At the house there was only so many puzzles that James could complete before they ran out of storage space. They'd taken to stacking them on puzzle mats in a hall closet so that they could eat at the kitchen table and put their feet up while watching TV.

Having company meant she didn't get lonely from having nobody to talk to but it also kept her from falling into old habits and not taking care of herself properly, like forgetting meal times. James could put away a lot. Not nearly as much as Bart but certainly close to what Clark and Kara could put away. She taken to having Bart swing around with half of his usual grocery run, cooking for all three of them from Martha’s cookbook of classic staples and then getting the boys to do the washing up.

It hadn't escaped her notice that the surveillance team across the street continued to watch the house. She had Clark sweep the place for listening devices and cameras before they moved back in, and now every time she came home, she did a quick sweep with a scanning device before letting Bucky back in through the roof access. He was nimble enough to scale and jump rooftops and it certainly made sneaking past their nosy neighbors easier.

If she'd discovered that they were using thermal imaging on their house she would have gone kicking their door down and pouring hot tea all over their equipment but fortunately for them, the agents had only been ordered to watch from the outside with regular old fashioned surveillance. Or at least that's all they'd admitted to on record, according to what Phil had been able to tell her. He'd been ordered by the SHIELD Governance Committee to put Captain America under surveillance for his own safety. Their reasons were that Sharon was at large and he was a high profile government operative. If he refused to stay on base or at the Avengers facility full time then he needed a security team watch. Chloe told Phil that since they'd been back Steve spent more time in D.C than at home, so the neighbors were unnecessary. He'd leveled her with a pained look with that full forehead wrinkles that warned she was being difficult and making his job impossible. 

“As much as we both know you're by no means helpless. As his wife, you're also a target. The agents will stay in place.”

Chloe didn't like it, it reduced their ease of movement and put their frequently unexpected but welcome guests at risk of discovery too. 

Before he'd turned up in their den with a pensive Sam in tow. Steve had assumed Bucky had returned to Asgard.

“Much as we loved being roomies North of the border, my girl would have to bring him in. She would hate to be the bad guy so it's probably best if you guys find a way to help a brother out.”

Chloe wondered who Sam was seeing, before old memories fell into place. She beamed at Sam and threw her arms around him in an exuberant hug. “I'm so happy for you two. And of course James can stay with us. We have the room and if I can sneak Bart and Clark in on a regular basis I'm sure a super-soldier, with stealth training won't have much trouble eluding the neighbors.”

Bucky huffed and looked disgruntled at her reference to his past but she patted his arm. “You were the best sniper that the 107th had. Also the best scout, even though Steve mentioned that Falsworth like to boast he was better. Don't let the only life you remember be the one they forced you to live.” She touched his cheek and waited until he got his rioting emotions fell in check before she drew away. The raw hopefulness and anguish on his face had put tears in his eyes and Chloe knew he wouldn't want the others to see.

He repaid the favor of allowing him to save face when he found her one afternoon, crying over a tray of burnt brownies.

Her sleeves had been wet on the cuffs and her hair was oily and in need of a wash from her mad wrestling with the washing machine and having her head and clothes smoked through by the oven. She had bitten off more than she could chew, setting herself up with too many tasks at once. She hadn't used a gas oven in years, or baked sweets. Things like cream cheese and chocolate chips didn't come in easy supply at a village market on the other side of the Galaxy. The linens in the cupboards are all dusty and smelling of old moth balls, so she'd put load after load in the washer and then drier. Only to find the laundry section of the basement flooded and only a few feet away from her recently re-installed priceless JLA custom build system.

She had drained the washer and run a rinse cycle because the suds were so thick she could barely make out the linen pattern, and it hadn't helped clear it by much at all. By the time she had mopped up and about ready to call it quits, she had smelled burning. And soon after James had found her.

After a little coaxing and patiently piecing together between hiccups that the laundry was the issue, he'd asked if he could fix the problem.

With a long face and feeling foolish, she had jabbed in the direction of the whited out washer glass.

He'd broken out with a wide smile. “Easy fix. We’ll need a bucket though.”

Bucket between them, James scooped out mountain after mountain of dense foam and dropped it into the bucket.

“When Becca was six, she thought she would help out by trying to do the laundry. I already worked two jobs to help out at home and after school she didn't have a lot to do. Picture one of those old metal turn washers with bubbles escaping every crack. She kept trying to scoop it and clean it away and every time she turned the handle more would come out. She had put too many soap flakes in. Our Dad was livid but I managed to shepherd him off. Together Becca and I rinsed out the machine and finished washing out the clothes in the laundry tub. So you could say I have experience with excess suds.”

Chloe swiped her eyes and gave him a bright and tearful smile. “You're my hero.”

Bucky blushed and glanced away. “No, I'm not,” he said simply, “but glad to help. Sorry but those brownie are beyond saving. Won't be any help there.”

She laughed until she almost started crying again. She even managed to pull a genuine smile out of him because of it. That night when Steve got in, bone tired and mentally wiped. His words all used up from dealing with politicians, he couldn't help but be curious at the fact that Bucky’s hair seemed shorter and Chloe wasn't looking as harassed as usual. 

“I figured it's only hair. And a pair of scissors in hands I trust shouldn't freak me out.”

“It kept getting in his eyes and tickling his nose. With hands full of soap it's kind of hard to push it back.”

Steve arched an eyebrow in question hoping they'd elaborate further but they seemed to think they'd explained clearly enough as Chloe busied herself setting out the take out he'd brought back with him. He tried not to get jealous over the fact that his best friend got to spend more time with his wife than he did but it was difficult. Thankfully, when he was home her concern and loving attention never gave him a reason to express his jealousy. Until he came back to the city and couldn't find her.

::: ::: :::

It was around midday when she noticed that James wasn't as into his new job as he normally was. She had noticed this nervous energy from him for the last few days but since he was otherwise acting normal, she gave him space and let him work through it. She had said she was there to listen often enough that she didn't want to seem like a broken record or seem like she was pushing.

He came and found her in the kitchen of the St. Luke’s Shelter For Boys, he was covered in specks of white ceiling paint and his hair was sticking to the back of his neck from where he'd worked up a good sweat. Since he always had to cover up to avoid showing his enhanced and very recognizable arm, he got overheated a lot.

Chloe brushed her hands on her apron staining it with carrot juice and went to get him some water. She pressed it into his hands and bit her bottom lip in deliberation before she decided he needed pushing. “Something has been bothering you the last couple of days and I think I've let you fester long enough.”

James swallowed the water from large glass in three big gulps and set it down on the metal bench. He glanced at her gauging her insistence and then looked away, his neck reddening as he did so. 

Chloe caught the vibe of discomfort and embarrassment, coupled with a tinge of jealousy and frowned. “Have I done something, said something that's…”

He snorted and hung his head, looking up at her from where he'd hunched forward, leaning his arm on the doorjamb. “Your bedroom is on a whole other floor but both you and Steve seem to forget we both have enhanced everything.”

Eyes wide, she paled and wrung her hands in her apron. “Oh blast it. I'm so sorry.” Biting her lip hard enough to leave impressions she closed her eyes and turned her face upward, her cheeks burning. Giving him a contrite expression, she said, “He’s home so rarely that I didn't even think. I remember when we were at the cabin we used to wait until Sam took you out before…”

“Thanks for those extra mental images,” James interjected with unmistakable sarcasm. “I'm happy for you guys, I really am but I don't want to see it, or hear it. Never been the voyeur type.”

She nodded quickly. “No, absolutely. It won't happen again. But I also think you've neatly avoid telling me the reason you've been distracted.”

James pulled a disgruntled face. “Have I told you lately how much I hate that you can read me even when I'm doing my best to spare you?”

“Spare me from what? James, we've been through the worst together. Nothing you can say will surprise me.”

“I've been dreaming about her, Natasha or as she was to me, Natalia. And I don't know if any of it was real.”

“But you want it to be,” Chloe said softly, reading the nervous hope in his heart.

“She loved me, or him… I don't even know who I was then, if that persona was me or an implant.”

Chloe touched his cheek. “I'm sorry I don't have answers for you. But I do know Natasha. At least a little. She's more difficult to read than you are,” she said with a gentle smile. “What I do know for certain is that she counts Steve as family and since you're practically brothers, I think that some of that loyalty and concern might extend to you too. You've both had a life stolen by others. Trained to do terrible things. If there was even a single moment of connection between you…”

“When I first saw her, after Steve was shot. I asked her if we knew each other, something in her eyes,” he trailed off a faraway look settling over his face.

The hand she had on his cheek drifted to his shoulder and she gave his human shoulder a firm squeeze. “Go upstate for a few days, find your answers. We want more than anything for you to be happy, James.”

He caught her up in an impulsive hug and when he pulled away, his eyes were had a fine sheen to them. “Thanks for the push.”

“Do you want me to call her, request a meeting?”

He hesitated in the doorway for a moment and then nodded. “Breaking into the Avengers compound might have been tough but not impossible but I don't want to attract attention or give her a reason to be defensive.”

“Good call. I'll use the phone in the back in five minutes. Go home and clean up first.”

Reflectively he sniffed his sweater and recoiled with a pinched look. “I haven't done laundry yet, do you think Steve would mind if I?”

“Help yourself. I'll see you in a couple days.”

Later that evening, on the bus ride home, she was texting Maria about setting up a spa date when explosions from nearby caused her to look up in alarm. When a building ahead suddenly exploded in flames, glass and debris falling across the street, the bus swerved violently into an oncoming truck. The bus tipped and then crashed onto its side, throwing people from their seats and off their feet, the vehicle sliding several feet before hitting a fire hydrant. Chloe had been holding her phone and had tried to catch herself on a chair in-front but was thrown forward by someone falling into her. She hit her head and blacked out.

When she came to she was disorientated and sound returned first before she could get her eyes to cooperate. The was pained moaning and crying around her. It sounded like a child. She blinked to full awareness and sat up, her shoulder ached and one of her eyelids felt sticky and heavy. When she lifted her fingers away she registered dully that they were stained with blood. She wasn’t concerned, head wounds always bled too freely.

“Ma’am, can you move? We want to get everyone out. The fire crew say there’s a fuel leak and being so close to the fires, we want to clear the area.”

Chloe nodded and took the EMT’s hand. He helped her navigate the bags, coats, chairs and other debris littering the floor, or more specifically, window side of the bus. Once outside she got a clearer picture of the chaos. There were people stumbling out of a burning apartment building, smoke bellowing from every storey. Crowds lined the streets outside while fire crews battled the inferno. Several ambulances were already on the scene treating everything from smoke inhalation, second and third degree burn victims, minor cuts and muscle sprains to severe shock.

There was a father and son on the pavement. The son was lying face down. He had his eyes tightly closed and flailed widely and screamed every time someone tried to touch him. The father, who had his arm bound tightly against his chest, possibly broken, was in pain but was very obviously concerned for his son. The EMT was getting exasperated. She couldn’t waste time with one patient, that didn’t look like he needed help, while there were masses of other victims that seemed to be growing in number with every passing minute.

Chloe stumbled over, she seemed to have lost a shoe. No matter. She kicked the other off and lay down on the sidewalk, next to the boy. The bewildered EMT that had been helping her, scrambled in his bag to get out a swab and suture kit, thinking that the blood loss must have made her faint. Chloe let him do his work while she concentrated on her horizontal companion.

Pushing away the cold and the adrenaline burning through her cells, she focused her attention on the boy. He couldn’t be more than 12 or 13. He was scared and in pain. He was confused and disorientated. From the way his lips kept mouthing words she couldn’t make out, and his eyes stayed fused shut, she wondered if he was a special needs child. 

“Can I?” she asked, gesturing to the emergency blanket the EMT who’d helped clean her forehead had in his bag. She unpacked it when he gave it to her and she put it around the boy. The other EMT had moved off to help others, but not before she had returned with both of Chloe’s shoes.They shared a nod of thanks and acknowledgement but Chloe focused her full attention back on the teen. He flinched and kicked out his legs when she tucked the blanket around him, but soon quieted when he felt the cold night air blocked out.

Taking one of his hands, carefully, gently, she pressed the universal sign for please against his fist. After a moment, he relaxed his fingers and opened his palm. Slowly, wrecking her brain for the old memories, she spelled words into his hands. Telling him she wanted to help. That she was a friend. That she had been on the bus too. Did he hurt? Where? She had been hurt. On the head. See? His eyes had cracked open and regarded her intently, curiously. With another finger he traced around her head where the white little strips now helped keep the stitches in place. 

In her hand, he spelled hurt and then rolled to his side a little to show her. On his stomach was a growing patch of dark wetness.

Chloe did her best not to panic. Soon they wouldn't have to deal with his fear and panic, he'd bleed out. She squeezed his fingers. Your dad and I will stay with you. But we need to go hospital. 

He nodded and clutched her hand tighter. Chloe nodded at his father who went to fetch some more help.

The boy kept hold of her hand as they loaded him on to the stretcher. The EMTs looked at their joined hands and then back at the father. To Chloe a kind face but harried looking red haired EMT said, “There’s only room for one.”

The father glanced between his boys scared and pale face and asked them, “Which hospital?”

“Metro-General.”

“His ID is in his bag,” the father said. “He’ll probably let you open it,” he instructed Chloe. “If anyone else tries, he might hurt himself worse.” Opening the backpack at her feet, she found his wallet which had his full ID and detailed his disabilities, he was deaf and autistic.

The entire ride over Chloe focused on keeping Darren calm while they cut open his shirt and put pressure around the shard of glass protruding from his stomach.

Handover at Emergency was fairly smooth since her patient had passed out by then, she was directed to the waiting room and waited to fill in Darren’s father. He was taken straight to X-Ray and they would operate as soon as they could discuss the results with the boy's father. 

The ER was flooded with incoming from the fires and what intake they could handle from the accident but it looked like they'd had a busy night to begin with. Rival gang members, drug victims that were clearly under the influence and others who just looked and felt generally unwell.

A loud scuffle broke out and she saw that a burly guy who was shackled to a gurney, had broken the rail and was now blindly trying to flee the corridor.

“Let me go,” he cried. “Move.”

Two officers and a nurse tried to subdue him. And a doctor rushed over bearing a syringe. He threw them all off. Chloe could feel his anger and frustration, but pulsing through it all was confusion and pain. Whatever was bothering him was worse than the burns on his shoulder and back. He didn't even cry out when they had put pressure on those weeping wounds trying to pin him down. He was already in a lot of pain.

He was coming her way, so she did what she'd been trained to do. She took him down.

::: ::: :::

The blinking light on the left monitor told him a call was incoming. He took one hand off the flight wheel to accept the transmission. Maria Hill appeared on his display screen.

“Barton, I need to talk to Steve.”

Clint turned his head and hollered over his shoulder, only to find that Steve was already there. The guy was spending way too much time with Natasha, with his bulk and those chunky combat boots of his, he should hear the dude coming. Damn super serum made the guy extremely agile and light footed for a centennial. He nodded at the display and hit another button so that it was on loud speaker instead of only feeding audio through his head set.

Steve could read from Maria’s expression that she was worried, so he brought up the call settings and fed it directly into his comm. frequency. “Talk to me.”

“Chloe and I were doing out daily message tag and she just dropped out on me. Then one of my analysts came in with a situation report from New York. I tried calling her phone and there was no answer. So got them to track it. Steve, she was in Hell’s Kitchen where the explosions were. Local brass say that fire crews are still trying to get the fires under control. If there are wounded, you can bet our girl is in the thick of it.”

“Or she’s hurt,” Steve said his voice tight.

“Steve, we both know that Chloe’s tougher than she looks.”

He shook his head. “Barton, turn us around. I need you to drop me over Harlem.” If Hell’s Kitchen was alright the smoke would be difficult to navigate. Harlem was close enough.

“Cap, I get that you’re worried, but Tasha’s at the compound, she’s closer. She can pick up Sullivan or get a sit rep for you.” His words might as well have fallen on deaf ears for all the change it made to the hard set of Steve’s Facial expression.

“So we’re scrubbing the Montreal mission?”

“No,” Steve said. “Sam’s on the ground. He can call in backup if he thinks you still need the extra numbers. I need to get to New York. Maria, did you try the other...” Steve cut himself short. He was so focused on his concern for Chloe, he almost outed the fact that he knew where Bucky was, and that he should be with Chloe. He clamped his mouth shut. His lips thinning. “Just get me to New York.”

Maria nodded to Barton and he signed off the transmission.

Clint had Steve dropped on a rooftop in Harlem about an hour later. It put their mission behind schedule but it wasn’t a bust since they weren’t on a set clock anyway. As far as he knew, Steve had already called Sam to update him, and then he’d called in a favor with a Canadian colleague, to help them out on the ground. Subduing a dangerous rogue metahuman that could teleport at will, they could use the extra muscle and resilience.

Steve borrowed a motorcycle and kept trying Bucky’s phone while he was riding. It continued to ring out, so did Chloe’s.

He arrived at the coordinates of Chloe’s last location and watched a crane truck and emergency crew trying to clear a bus that was blocking the street. His heart started pounding in his chest. As he looked around he saw that the building that had no doubt caused all the chaos in the area was still on fire. He walked up to a family huddled on the street sipping hot drinks being handed out by the local church mission volunteers. 

He’d had the foresight to change into regular clothes before leaving the jet, but only just. He felt itchy and slightly on edge without the shield though. He had never had to leave it where it wasn’t easily accessible. He’d always practiced the port to port rule. While he didn’t regularly carry a sidearm like Chloe had in the past, he normally wasn’t without his shield.

He had a picture pouch in his wallet, and he flipped it open to show the adults in the family group he’d approached. “Have you seen this woman?”

The parents shook their heads, and the boy did too. His younger sister however looked up at him with wide eyes, soot on her cheeks. For a moment he thought that she might have been star struck by him and the lack of recognition from the parents was soon going to fade. Since the Attack on New York, and then the Hydra assault in D.C., his reputation had taken a bit of a hit. The ‘baby boomer’ generation and their parents who were still around to remember the war considered him a decorated hero, and an honorable veteran, but the younger generation were a bit more on the fence, falling one way or the other, depending on the day of the week. Some thought him no better than the vigilantes that were popping up all over the globe, while others thought without patriotic people like him, these metahumans would completely upend the American way of life.

“Hey,” he said softly. That seemed to break her trance. She took the plastic protected picture from him, her chubby little fingers holding the edges carefully. Like she knew even without asking that she should be careful with it. Her deliberate care showed him that she understood the importance of the question he asked and the woman in the picture.

“She has pretty hair,” she said wistfully. “She was helping a boy. He was loud and angry but she made him quiet.”

“Sweetie, are you sure?” her mother asked.

Steve didn’t need to know if she was sure. What she’d described sounded exactly like something Chloe would do. So if she was helping others, that meant she wasn’t seriously hurt herself. Yeah, Steve. Keep telling yourself that. Because of course she wouldn’t think to let someone check her over, while there are crowds of injured around.

He got on the bike and headed for the nearest hospital. He was hoping to approach a harassed looking triage nurse, photo in hand when he heard her voice.

“You’re not listening. He’s not high, I guarantee you. Don’t roll your eyes at me. Well I never. The level of ignorance you’re displaying astounds me. I have decades more experience in dealing with the weird and unexplained, sir and… get your hands off…”

He’d heard enough. Momentarily frozen in relief at the sound of her voice, he quickly sprung into action when he’d heard the defensive edge in her voice.

She was standing between a crouched wall of a man, a doctor and two officers. One of them had his hand on his weapon, the other had his hand tight around Chloe’s wrist. Steve saw red. He immediately planted himself between her and the others. 

“You want to step away,” he said in a deadly calm tone.

Chloe startled at his sudden intervention, her mind chaotically trying to piece together what he was doing there but also mentally slapping herself that not once had she thought to make contact with Maria, with whom she’d last spoken to, or calling Steve, who would have caught the news one way or another, and letting them know she was okay.

“Sir, the man needs to be restrained. He’s a danger to everyone. The people brought him in from the street, ranting and raving about lights. He was a victim of the Harlem fires but he’s been completely uncooperative.”

Steve glanced back at the man facing the wall just inside the Radiology room and the technician and patient frozen mid-prep, and turned back to the officers, he was hunched over and unmoving. His trained eye caught the tiny dot of the end of an acupuncture needle. His assessment of the situation took less than a second. “He’s not hurting anyone right this second. And if my wife is involved, I can guarantee you, he won’t be a danger to anyone.”

 

The doctor who had been eyeing Chloe suspiciously the entire time, turned his nose up. “I remember you. You’re one of those mutants. Makes sense you can understand his problem,” he said with a nod at the man behind them. “ I want you and your lot out of here. We don’t need your kind of trouble.”

Steve bristled and Chloe immediately grabbed his forearm which had been half raised, poised to deck the doctor.

“He’s not worth it,” she said softly, breaking his dark glare from the doctor and the officers who were watching their exchange with a nervous edge when he turned his gaze to her face. “Believe it or not, he’s good at his job. Just a prejudice idiot and there’s no helping that.” She threw her arms around him and Steve returned her embrace, hugged her tightly. She could feel his chest expanding and then the slow exhale as the nervous tension in his body bled away. “I’m so sorry I didn’t call.”

Steve nodded into her shoulder. “Worried the living daylights out of me, love. So what’s his story?” he asked, nodding over Chloe’s shoulder.

“He needs quiet. And I don’t mean the inaudible kind. I’ll explain more later, I need to call in a favor first.”

Forty minutes later, a SHIELD transport had shown up and Jemma and Skye had picked up their distraught burns patient. Turns out he could see people’s auras as light and sound. What regular intuitive people picked up as moods, he was seeing in bright and loud Dolby-surround, think IMAX visual. And it had all happened in a near blinding, deafening rush after he’d almost been burned alive when his building exploded in flames. Talk about awakening your mutant genes. Jemma promised to update her on his condition and Skye was doing what she did best - injecting deadpan humor and beguiling him with her sparkling personality to help distract the guy from his frayed nerves and the insurmountable pain.

Steve offered his wife a ride on their burrowed motorcycle, which they’d returned with money tucked under the saddle cushion for gas and a healthy bonus as a thank you, and took a taxi to the 15th precinct to find out where the bus wreck had been towed, so that they could pick up her medical bag and the remains of her phone.

While waiting at the police impound for their police escort to find the right keys, Steve decided to voice his burning questions. “How often have you been going out till this late?”

Chloe tilted her head to the side and regarded him with a small smirk, her arm tightening around his waist as she squeezed him under the ribs. “Are you going to use your dad voice on me?”

Steve glared at her through narrowed eyes and then swept her around so that she was plastered against his front. “Don't make light of this. We deal with bad guys everyday, and dangerous maniac dames for that matter too. I know I'm not around enough…”

“And I don't need you to be…”

He growled at her in clear but fond exasperation and then pressed his lips tenderly, his touch barely a whisper against the dressing covering her right eyebrow. “Do you want me to spank you? Stop interrupting me.”

Chloe lifted her hands and pushed back the sweaty locks of hair from his face. “Still haven't got around to that haircut yet have you?” It would be fine swept back by the cowl in his helmet but loose it definitely hung in his eyes. “You’ll give James a run for the shaggy department.”

“Oh I don't know. Maybe my wife prefers it,” he said letting his jealousy get the better of him.

“Steve?” She gently brushed her thumb over his cheek and framed his face. “I'm sorry I didn't tell you I was going out. I just couldn't stand sitting around while the city is falling apart right outside our door.”

“But why Hell’s Kitchen, Harlem? Brooklyn have missions just like Mercy Heart. That part of New York is home to some of the worst criminal gangs.”

“I wasn't going alone and I need…” She ducked her gaze and bit her bottom lip before forcing her chin up to meet his eyes. She couldn't stop the burning of pent up emotion, a gnawing fear of his judgement or dismissal that she knew was irrational but she couldn't force away. “I need to feel needed, useful.”

Steve swallowed hard in the face of the bright sheen of her eyes that spoke of her longing and sorrow. He kissed her lips and took both of her hands to his chest. “I need you. Chloe, I have no words for how much I need you. If I could live in the warmth of your presence, the radiance of your smile, the gentleness of your touch and the hope of your love every moment of every day, I would. But I know that eventually it would frustrate you, maybe even make you resent me. You’ve had a long time to build a life for yourself. And no,” he interjected when she saw her face fall, guilt creeping in, he held her chin, gently chastising with love. “It’s not your fault. You made the best of an impossible situation, but I want to give you your space. Watching you die, losing you, I felt and watched my world dull. I saw things the way I did before the serum. It would be all too easy for me to hold on too tight.”

Chloe blinked back tears. Not only because of the pain she heard in his voice, the loss he'd experienced as she imagined the dim and lifeless picture he was painting for her but also what he felt. She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek to his sternum hearing the comforting strong thump of his heart while trying to reassure and comfort him to ease his hurt by just being present in the moment with him. “I love you, Steve. More than my own life.”

He kissed her hair and held her tighter. “You're my heart, my everything. I love you. If you don't trust my words, trust this,” he said firmly, taking her hands from around his waist and placing them either side of his face. The body’s emotional hub was in the brain. All that feeling was just complex chemistry. 

Chloe closed her eyes and let his emotions wash over her. By the time she opened her eyes again she could feel wetness on her neck. The tears had fallen so freely that it could have been a torrent for all she knew, she must have looked a mess, yet Steve was smiling down at her through his own suspiciously wet lashes. 

There was an awkward cough behind them. “Sorry... to interrupt but I'd like to get home to my own girl, Captain - sir, ” Sergeant Mahoney said.

Steve threaded his fingers through Chloe’s and lead the way to the open gate. “Thank you for your help, Mahoney. We appreciate it.”

The sergeant nodded. “There aren't many people who are willing to stand up for what's right. To put themselves at risk, to protect others. Consider this only a small way, I can say thank you. And you too, ma’am. I was there on scene when you helped that kid and his father. You've got a gift. I'll be waiting by the gate, just give me a yell when you're done.”

Steve smiled at his wife proudly at the words of the sergeant, if only the world knew and appreciated just how much of a gift she was.


	2. I'll Always Remember You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha and Bucky's POV of their reunion.

Natasha bounced her feet with a nervous energy. He wanted to see her. He had asked to see her. How much did he remember? What specifically did he remember?

Was it Odessa? Or an even older memory? The Red Room. The faceless but familiar man with that impossibly strong arm. 

Wanda’s mindscape had brought memories to the surface that she had buried long ago. And seeing him again outside the courthouse, his touch had sparked an awakening inside her body. She wondered what he saw when he looked at her. Something in his expression, something raw in those intense blue eyes made her think it was something intimate, a deeply personal and unguarded moment in his past. He was familiar to her. He had been there with her, a dark and painful part of her beginning, but also something else, something she had lost, they’d taken more than part of her anatomy, they’d taken him. Just one connected moment, his eyes searching into her soul on that ill-fate afternoon, and she knew it in her bones. 

They had twisted and implanted so many personas in her mind that for a long time even after she defected from the KGB, she struggled to define herself, to find her identity. She had started out by choosing to be whatever Fury needed her to be, till Steve had called her out on her role-playing. Even after Budapest when she had saved Clint’s life and he introduced her to his family, she had never pictured having what he’d built. A life outside the job, a family, people to love. Love made you weak, attachments were liabilities. For a long time it was just about checks and balances, debts to be repaid. It wasn't until Steve had saved her life, not once but twice that she learned that maybe she needed to stop viewing life through the eyes of an assassin turned spy. That she needed to start living, letting people in. Caring not because it was the human and right thing to do, but because she wanted to. She started noticing the little things about her teammates, quirks that revealed their flaws and uniqueness. Maybe it was the damaged emotional state and unworthiness in Bruce that had drawn her to him. Or perhaps it was the air of danger and raw power he unconsciously alluded.

All it took was the rush, seeing those electric piercing blue eyes, smelling his heavy masculine scent and she was thrown into chaos. It was Odessa and hunting Ghost trails all over again and the distraction had almost got her killed. He was her weak spot. This was the man that her heart danced with. Love was for children. What she had with her Soldier was something else.

The Soldier. That's all he had called himself. It's what their handlers called him too. Or the Ghost, because he had no persona and he left no trace. In every exercise he moved like a fluid machine, hard as steel but as swift and furious as a tropical storm.

She rolled her shoulder, trailed her fingers over her collarbone and across her ribs in memory of how hard some of his hits had been. Sloppy, her handler had always said every time The Soldier had put her on the mat or had her in an inescapable hold. She still had the bullet wounds from the shots he'd taken. Both had been aimed to wound. However without medical attention she would have bled out both times. He was a deadly accurate marksmen, had a slow death been his intention? Or had some deeply rooted instinct driven his actions to defy his orders and allow her a fighting chance to live? That was not part of his training. They were trained to kill, leave no witnesses.

Natasha thumbed the darkened screen of her phone and tapped the device against her thigh before getting up. She was acting like a nervous school girl waiting for her prom date. She stood and bit down on the corner of her bottom lip. She'd never attended prom, or a school dance. Although she was a talented dancer. Not that anyone but Clint knew about that, and Fury. Did Barnes remember that? The one time she had danced for him? Or was that a false memory? She shoved the phone into the utility pouch strapped to her belt. She'd opted for a two-piece SHIELD uniform, it was far more practical than the catsuit. While the one-piece cut out wind better in the field and the Kevlar infused polymer skin provided full uncompromised coverage, it was a bitch to take bathroom breaks in.

She had chosen her outfit deliberately. The last time they had seen each other, she had been in uniform. She hoped to keep his memory continuity going, perhaps even build on it to provide answers for both of them.

As she paced the small park opposite the tacky but discreet motel she'd told him she would meet him at, she wondered what Steve would say about her meeting his fugitive best friend. Regulations and standing orders meant she should arrest him, turn him over to SHIELD but she wouldn't. Not only could she not do that to Steve - Barnes was his only link left to his past - but she needed to know what was real. She had to know if what she remembered of their past wasn't an implant or worse, a mission.

“Natalia?” 

She turned at the sound of his voice. Damn, he was more stealthy than anyone she'd ever met. 

“Or do you prefer Natasha?” he asked, running his hands through his hair before he pulled a disgruntled face when his fingers snagged on the braids.

She twitched a smile. “I'm guessing that's a new look for you.”

“A disguise. It's ridiculous, right?”

She gave him a thoughtful look before subtly shaking her head. It was nice to see his face without his hair threatening to fall across his eyes. “Different,” she said softly. She brought her arms up, and folded them under her chest for lack of what to do with her hands. “Natalia’s fine. I haven't been called that in a very long time but it's not so bad coming from you,” she said with a sultry telling look while she gave him an obvious once over.

“What were we to each other?” he asked, his voice thick and uncertain. Drawing closer, he lifted his hand as if to reach for her and then dropped it restlessly to his side, keeping a respectable between them.

Natasha moved closer and touched the shadow of stubble darkening his jaw. “You were one of the trainers in the Red Room Academy for a time. A school where they trained children to become assassins.”

James hung his head, his brows drawing together and his jaw tense, his look revealing obvious self loathing. “The dreams, they're all memories?”

“Perhaps. KGB methods involved electro-therapy, drug conditioning and memory implantation and manipulation. Sometimes it's difficult to separate reality from their design.”

“How will I know?” he asked lifting his eyes to hers, his voice a hoarse whisper.

“Ask me,” she prompted, her hand drifting to rest against the front of his hoodie. Even through the fabric and sweat shirt beneath she could feel how fast his heart was pounding.

“Were we lovers?” He sounded almost hopeful.

“I don't remember,” she said, watching the flicker of want in his glassy eyes die with her words. “But when you say my name, something in my body tells me I know you.” She took his human hand and put it against the thundering pulse at her neck. “I feel it here.” She guided his hand lower to the valley between the top of her breasts and over her heart. “Here.” She kept her eyes locked with his and lead his hand lower still, resting it over her lower belly between her hips. She watched his Adam’s apple bob several times and his pupils dilate as his fingers splayed over her. Her shirt had ridden up a little and the heat of his fingers burned like an inferno through her chilled skin. “Your touch, I remember.”

He leaned down and curled his arm around her waist dragging her up against his hard body. He searched her eyes for any sign of resistance before he captured her lush looking mouth in a hungry and desperate kiss.

Fireworks went off in his brain and crackling like static raced over him from every point that they were joined. His fingers questing up under the back of her shirt and her hands on the sides of his face before she had moved them to his hips. Her nimble fingers tugging at his clothing.

They made it inside the motel room in a blur of fumbled, graceless movements between groping, questing hands and breathless kisses. She kicked the door shut behind them before the clothes started coming off, tossed in every which direction with not a care to where they ended up.

She had the foresight to unwrap and sheath him in a condom before she straddled his hips, and he only just remembered his inhuman strength and forced his metal arm to remain tangled in the sheet while she rode him without mercy. He only had a minute to toss her off before the fun threatened to end too soon after it began.

Looming over her, he caught both her wrists in his human hand and forced her arms over her head. With a sexy smirk, she tried to reverse their positions by hooking her strong and lithely muscled leg around his hip but he used his bulk to hold her down. He kissed and breathed his way across her body, starting with her sensitive neck, a spot he was instinctively drawn to just under her left jaw that made her writhe wildly, but he didn't let up.

His lips encountered uneven skin at her shoulder and he froze. He pulled back and flicked on the reading light. He started at the obvious but small raised scarring just below her left collarbone. He blinked and trailed his fingers over it, before his eyes clouded and his expression darkened. “The bridge.” He released her wrists and eased his weight away. The light revealed that she had more than a few scars but another distinctive one caught his eye as she sat up. She wasn't quick enough it gathering up the sheet and he touched it, fingering the reddened scar that stood out against the pale cream of her skin. “I shot you. You were in the way.”

He clamped his eyes shut and then put his face in his hands. He turned away from her and faced the shuttered window. From where she sat up behind him, Natasha could see that he was shaking. His shoulder muscles were pulled tight and his spine was curved but rigidly set.

“James, can I call you, James? What they did to you…”

“I don't know how you can even stand to look at me. I did that to you. Twice, I tried to kill you.”

“Did you?” 

Bucky turned around so fast to look at her his normally graceful movements looked like more of a sudden jerk. “You think I missed? Natalia, I remember holding my hand over your face until you passed out. I walked away and if your boss hadn't checked up on you, you'd be dead.”

Natasha reached for his metal hand and he tried to pull away. The look on her face broke him and he stopped trying. He was weak and the acceptance and forgiveness he read in her expression made him want to weep in gratitude. Hers was only one of countless sins he had committed but if she could forgive him, maybe there was hope. 

She touched his face and brushed away the wetness from his cheeks. “We might never have absolution from the sins of the past. But for what it's worth to you, I don't blame you, my ангельские глаза.”

It had been a while since anyone had spoken to him in Russian and at first a chill raced down his spine before he registered what she had called him.

He curled his finger in her hair and took simple pleasure in its silky soft texture. “My fire flower…purple corcus,” he said softly, almost as if he was hesitant to say the words lest she look at him in blank incomprehension.

Natasha gave him a slow smile which transformed into a seductive smirk. “I think I remember you saying you prefer I wear nothing else.”

Bucky felt his mouth run dry. “Sounds like something I would say.”

“It's not nice to leave a lady wanting, James.”

“No, ma’am,” he agreed wholeheartedly and crawled back over her, picking up right where they left off.

The phone in his jeans buzzed and buzzed from where it lay buried in a heap behind the cheap sofa. And by the time pre-dawn hours hit and he quietly got dressed and kissed his dozing Russian doll goodbye, he knew his non answer required more than a quick text reply.

Chloe just shrugged off his radio silence with an easy grace that he had come to accept was completely normal for her, it was Steve going all stern disapproving father on him that got his hackles up.

“And if I'd been on that bus with her, I could have been thrown, injured someone else, who knows. I'm a wanted man, Steve. No one’s supposed to know I'm here right?”

Bucky noticed from Steve’s expression that his rational argument was falling on deaf ears. The man was like a pit bull with a pant leg. He didn't know when to let go… Once he was in a fight, you had to drag him away. 

“You're putting the risk of your arrest over Chloe’s safety?”

“Like you put the mission before mine?” He knew he'd gone too far when he saw hurt cloud Steve’s face.

Bucky ran his hand over his hair and then shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. “I shouldn't have left her to get home alone. We would have never let the girls see themselves home when we were kids. It won't happen again.”

“Oh you two stop it. I'm perfectly capable of looking after myself. I've lived in big cities on my own for a long time, and alone in the woods for even longer than that. No big bad wolf came after me…” She twitched a half smirk and shook her head when she caught Steve giving her a pointed look and his furrowed brows were fixing to make a permanent impression. “Okay, so there may have been a wolf, but he didn't eat me.”

Bucky snorted at her attempt at levity to distract them from where this talk had gone. He'd finally said it and Steve had taken it exactly how he imagined he would. The guilt and pain was palpable. He let out a long breath, Steve was lucky to have Chloe, she'd get him through this slump that he'd intentionally triggered. He didn't felt great about finally getting it off his chest, but saying the words had taken a weight off his heart. It was petty of him but he needed Steve to know that he'd felt abandoned. That he did feel a tiny, irrational measure of blame toward Steve for what he'd become. For what Hydra had turned him into. Steve had given up on him to complete the mission. He had chosen to be Captain America, instead of Steve Rogers.

He watched them have a silent conversation with facial expressions alone. Their flirting was funny but also torture to watch. These two were so obviously stuck on each other, it was as though the rest of the world were invisible to them. “And I'm gonna-” He made a shooing motion with his fingers and had barely exited the room before he noticed that Steve had grabbed her close.

::: ::: :::

Natasha lay pressed against his body. He held her tucked against his right side, his arm curled around her back like a protective anchor. She ran her fingers lightly over the smooth skin of his chest, exploring and triggering faded memories with each instinctive touch.

They had been sneaking off to meet each other for weeks now. Not even the heavy snowfall and limited transportation options had deterred them. Neither of them chose to label or define what this was. Yet she knew from his expression each time he took her that it was exclusive and no game to him.

Sometimes the intensity of his eyes forced the air from her lungs and her vision blackened around the edges before she reminded herself to breathe while she rode the incredible wave of physical reactions he was able to pull from her body. Laying in his arms like this though, basking in the quiet with nothing but their shared soft breathing and the steady thump of twin heartbeats, she allowed herself to admit that he didn't just compromise her physically. He was under her skin, inside her head.

It was why his next words broke her heart. A heart she'd denied existence when he'd left her long ago. At 14, when they had first introduced him as their trainer, she was still capable of hope and dreams, and as she grew into womanhood their dynamic changed. She fell in love with him and when he hadn't whisked her away from that place and The Red Room had stolen any chance of them ever sharing a child, she'd figuratively frozen her heart, never to let it control her mind again. Love was for children. But he only had to look at her with those angelic blues and she was 16 again.

“I want you to bring me in. I need to face the courts for my past.”

“They'll never let you go free.”

Her throat started to close up and tears burned behind her eyes. She lay her hand flat against his heart and he put his cold metal hand over her warm one.

She wasn't afraid of his metal touch. That arm was a part of him. It had been there since they had first met. It was capable of crippling devastation. It could crumble solid concrete to ash, but when he was with her, he had never hurt her. Not as her, Angel Eyes.

“Why now?”

“I'm tired of hiding. I don't want to run anymore. This isn't free, katya.”

Every time he called her that, reminiscent of their past, it made her want to cling to him and never let go. Once upon a time she had been innocent, still pure. Now her hands were as red as his. Despite that he still believed that she was the pure one. He didn't know how many she'd killed, how good she'd gotten at being an assassin and how much she had taken pride in her work. She'd tried to tell him that she wasn't worthy of that name anymore but he silenced her protests every time.

He was very good at distracting her.

“I'll be at the mini-mart on 5th and Henry just before 4 a.m. It's not busy then. I've been going there around that time for the past week. They have CCTV and there's a street camera on the corner opposite. I let it pick me up today. I need it to be you, Natalia. I trust you.”

If it were anyone else, they may just kill him on sight. She had to get Maria to arrange the STRIKE team ASAP. 

“Does Steve know you're doing this?”

“It's my call, but yes, he knows.”

She lifted her head and shifted her weight to stretch out over him. She kissed him thoroughly and guided him in. One more for the road. It could very well be the last time. She would make it count.

The therapy they gave all the graduates of the Red Room were designed to keep them youthful and attractive. Seemingly ageless but they didn’t give her the superior strength or the cellular repair rate of the Super Serum that Steve and a derivative that Zola had crafted from the Red Skull’s blood that she was sure James’ shared. His memory in time, would return to him in detail. Her memories were more uncertain. Wanda had powerful telepathic and telekinetic ability. Her control growing stronger everyday, and ingenuity in her application seemingly limitless. She had a resource available to help her piece together the fractured and missing parts of her memories. While she wasn't used to asking for help, she would do it for James. For herself. At the price of allowing her vulnerability to show, the results if it paid off would be worth it.

_“I will always remember you.”_

His words were soft, a ghost of memory as she felt the warmth of his breath against the sensitive skin of her throat. Hot tears smarted in her eyes and her heart raced behind her ribs. She clung to him tightly as he built pleasure inside her. 

He’d find his way back to her. Time had shown her he always would. And she would be waiting, and while she did, she would fight to remember everything they’d lost.


End file.
